Prime Minister of Guinea is far from wrong to worry that the global financial crisis could have a major impact on the mining and energy, even leading some to close.

Relaying his fears in a very “concrete”, a hundred stewards French and Belgian Arcelor Mittal demonstrated Tuesday outside the headquarters of the group in Luxembourg. Their goals: report lower production and warn against possible site closures. Daily Finance and Investment Tips / Make Money by Learning

The protesters, gathered under the banner of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (CSC) of Belgium, the Belgian Socialist union FGTB and the French CFDT, presented to members of the leadership of number one global steel an open letter denouncing the “Arcelor Mittal casually address the current crisis.”

“If we are here is that we have great concerns about the future of production sites, but also because of attacks and assaults on the purchasing power of workers,” said Jordan for his part Atanasov, the CSC-metals Liege.

“We expect new ads as negative as those we have known in recent weeks,” said Belgian delegate.

“Faced with reduced demand, and temporarily, we are setting up production cuts, which could take up to 15%”, declared in mid-October a spokesperson.

He had also stated that this reduction would not be uniform in all markets, but would receive more “areas where demand has decreased the most.” Meanwhile the group had announced it would reduce its steel production in Poland from 10 to 15% compared to 2007 levels.

Against the backdrop of economic slowdown, the steelmaker had subsequently announced early November, a decrease of 35% of the total production in the fourth quarter of 2008.

In Europe, these reductions “temporary” amount to 50% on Belgian and French sites of production of stainless steel. These are added to the list of “dozens” of European sites specializing in steel plates, to the automotive industry in particular, whose production will be reduced by 30%.

Of these sites, some are in Belgium, and three are in France at Dunkirk (North), Florange (Moselle) and Fos-sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhone). The group has already taken on these sites off measures and encourages its employees to settle their vacation days.

But officials of the CSC and the CFDT now fear that the production cuts announced only serve as a pretext for permanent closures, including 18 blast furnaces in Europe.

“We fear that if the crisis lasts too long, Mittal could benefit not to turn facilities, with the key dismissals,” said Edouard Martin, CFDT delegate of ArcelorMittal to Gandrange (Moselle). For the steelmaker could draw on methods used by Molex which dismiss more than 300 people to relocate its operations in Slovakia, funds of financial crisis, of course ….

The event preceded a meeting of the European restricted between management of ArcelorMittal and 25 union representatives to “discuss the impact of measures to cut production, said a spokesman for ArcelorMittal, before the joint meeting. He reiterated that such measures were “designed to temporarily adjust” production to demand.

Michel Wurth, member of senior management has also claimed earlier this month Arcelor Mittal - which foresees a rebound in demand in early 2009 - provide “no definitive closure of facilities in Europe.” He did not specify whether the new production cuts will result in job cuts.

Regarding the postponement of investment projects, Mr. Wurth said qArcelor Mittal had decided to delay some new projects in Europe, as in the rest of the world, but had “not changed its plans” long-term .
In India, where according to the Financial Times investments of $ 20 billion in 2009 would be postponed at least to 2012, CEO Lakshmi Mittal said that there were indeed “delays” which do not undermine the achievement projects “long term”.